Pages

Iceland- The Golden Circle

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

With well over fourteen hours of sleep we ended up having a much later start than originally anticipated. It is a good thing that it stays light in May well past 11pm. Needing all the light we could get for our self drive tour of THE most popular tour in Iceland...the Golden Circle.

While driving to our first destination we discussed some of the things we noticed thus far in Iceland. Yes, we dug real deep.

ThingvellirNational Park was our first stop of the day and the scenery was absolutely breathtaking. It is home to the world's first democratic parliament. I would highly recommend stopping at the visitor's center for trail maps and information as the park is massive.

Geysir (pronounced GAY-zeer;which I totally mispronounced in the video along with the majority of everything else) was up next.

Interestingly enough the major sight, Geysir, does not actually erupt on a regular basis due to impatient tourists who threw rocks in the spring to try and set it off and then became clogged.

Not to worry because Stokkur (which is right next door) puts on a lovely show every eight minutes or so. You wait for the gasps as the bubbly concoction erupts about 15m-30m into the air. Quite impressive.

The last stop on the Golden Circle tour is Gullfoss which is only about a ten minute drive from Geysir. This is one of the most popular waterfalls in all of Iceland.

We parked our car and made our way down steep steps; then we walked the wooden plank leading to the double waterfall where the spray created bright colored rainbows along the way.

Our first full day of driving around Iceland was shockingly easy to navigate. I was a bit concerned I would mess up since I convinced my husband that I did not need a GPS and was quite capable of using a map. But, unlike my pronunciation, it went seamlessly well.